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FORGING PAN-ASIAN AMERICAN UNITY
March 31, 1983 stands out in the history of Asians in America: It was the date that more than 100 individuals and representatives of numerous Asian organizations from the greater Detroit area came together in recognition that Asian American lives depended on the willingness to work in cooperation and in coalition with one another. It was the date that American Citizens for Justice was created. On that icy, wintry night in Detroit’s decaying Chinatown near Cass and Peterboro, everyone put their differences aside in the drafty meeting hall of the Detroit Chinese Welfare Council, the civic arm of the Chinese Consolidated Business Association and the On Leong association. In attendance were liberals, conservatives and radicals; youths and seniors; scientists and businessmen, office workers and laundry workers; Chinese, Japanese, Filipinos and Koreans; Christians and Buddhists; Cantonese- and Mandarin-speakers; American-born and immigrants; and people from many other walks of life. There had already been two smaller, initial meetings, including one at the Golden Star restaurant in Ferndale, where Vincent had worked part-time as a waiter. At one of those earlier meetings, Lily Chin, stood up and spoke in a shaky but clear voice: “We must speak up. These men killed my son like an animal. But they go free. We must tell the people, this is wrong.” With her courageous stand as a beacon, it was decided that a broad and diverse gathering of Asian Americans was needed to create a new organization that could advocate for Americans of Asian ancestry and coordinate a community response hat could include petitioning and leading legal actions, raising money and organizing the outcry. Members of twenty-some groups signed on that night; most were Chinese American, from the Association of Chinese Americans and the Greater Detroit Taiwanese Association, to such professional associations as the Detroit Chinese Engineering Association; cultural groups like the Chinese American Educational and Cultural Center; church organizations from the Chinese Community Church to the Detroit Buddhist Church; and a women’s group, the Organization of Chinese American Women. Detroit had not seen such a broad gathering of Chinese since the China War Relief effort of the 1930s. Non-Chinese were also represented, including the Japanese American Citizens League, the Korean Society of
Metropolitan Detroit and the Filipino American Community Council. When it came time to choose a name, people overwhelmingly wanted an inclusive vision that would stand up for justice for all Americans, not just focus on one community. They chose American Citizens for Justice (ACJ). In today’s context, the name elevates citizenship at a time when so many immigrants are being demonized, denied legal status and basic human rights; but in 1983, it was a declaration that Asians belonged in America and an expression of solidarity with other Americans. ACJ marked the formation of the first explicitly Asian American grassroots advocacy effort with a national scope. Kin Yee, an architectural engineer, was elected president of the fledgling civil rights group, with Roland Hwang, Marissa Chuang and Helen Zia as officers. Third-generation Detroiter Jim Shimoura, representing the Japanese American Citizens League, was the first non-Chinese to serve on the executive board. Japanese, Filipino and Korean American groups joined in support, assured that they would be welcome. As word of our efforts spread, Black, white and Jewish individuals also volunteered, making the campaign for justice multiracial in character. In the weeks and months that followed, the many volunteers of ACJ donated money and thousands of hours of time and effort to muster additional support from around the country and internationally, and mobilized whatever else was needed to uncover what caused this egregious miscarriage of justice. ACJ engaged a law firm with a fearless Hong-Kongborn attorney, Liza Chan, who worked tirelessly to strategize a legal recourse. Obtaining records and reconstructing the events of that tragic evening took much hard work and persistence given that the police, prosecutor and court appeared all too eager to cover up their blunders and incompetence, especially when they did not take the otherwise invisible Asian American community seriously. Fortunately, the established civil rights organizations of Detroit welcomed the new voice of Asian Americans and their pursuit of justice. In particular, the Detroit Area Black Organizations (DABO) helped ACJ get meetings with the judge and prosecutor when both used delaying tactics for weeks; Judge Kaufman even skipped out on a scheduled meeting by slipping out a back door and sending his clerk out to say he went on vacation. The NAACP Detroit Branch, the Anti Defamation League of B’nai B’rith, members of the Detroit City Council, the United Auto Workers Union Community Action Program and many others gave invaluable assistance to this advocacy voice of Asian Americans.
The new pan-Asian American organization drafted its statement of principles that night:
“ACJ believes that: 1. All citizens are guaranteed the right to equal treatment by our judicial and governmental system; 2. When the rights of one individual are violated, all of society suffers; 3. Asian Americans, along with many other groups of people, have historically been given less than equal treatment by the American judicial and governmental system. Only through cooperative efforts with all people will society progress and be a better place for all citizens.” ACJ’s first mandate was clear: to obtain justice for Vincent Chin, a Chinese American who was killed because of anti-Asian hate focused on Japan.
Bit by bit, ACJ was able to reconstruct what happened to Vincent and in the court system. Because government officials, the news media and general public were so unaware of the existence of Asian Americans, let alone the racism that Asians experience, ACJ cautiously refrained from accusations of racism against the sentencing judge and even against the killers. But then the news media and Liza Chan obtained statements of witnesses at the bar, whom police had not bothered to ever interview. These witnesses declared under oath that they had overheard racist and insulting comments that the killer Ebens made to Vincent Chin, including, “It’s because of you motherf---ers that we’re out of work.” With new eyewitness accounts in hand, ACJ reached the inescapable conclusion: that Vincent Chin’s civil rights had been violated because of his race. ACJ called for a new review of Vincent’s case. On May 9, 1983, ACJ organized a huge demonstration in Detroit. The visible community outcry reached far and wide. After the protests and Lily Chin’s visit to Washington, DC, the US Department of Justice and FBI initiated an investigation. During that long summer of 1983, as the news of what happened in Detroit continued to spread throughout the US and across the globe, Asians began to reach out and organize, knowing that their families’ welfare and livelihoods would depend on the ability of Asian American communities to work together and with people of other races and backgrounds. ACJ’s and Detroit’s volunteers worked continuously to reach out to public officials, journalists, friends and family, churches, work and professional networks, campuses and clubs. Sympathetic supporters elsewhere organized their own rallies and activities in such places as San Francisco, Oakland, Los Angeles, Denver, Chicago, Toronto and New York. Lily Chin and ACJ representatives were invited to address groups all over the country. New Asian American advocacy groups formed in San Francisco, Los Angeles, Chicago and New York. Asian Americans spoke publicly to the nation about anti-Asian prejudice for the first time, with real community members appearing in sharp contrast to the one-dimensional racial caricatures in media and entertainment that have depicted Asian Americans as either the perpetual foreigner and enemy invader or the quiet, complacent “model minority,” racist images that contributed to Vincent Chin’s murder. The Detroit groups received a tremendous boost from the small number of national Asian American groups, including the Japanese American Citizens League, the Organization of Chinese Americans and the National Chinese Welfare Association. Lily Chin and ACJ representatives made their case on national television—on all three national news networks, the popular Phil Donahue Show, NBC’s First Camera investigative news program and in local TV documentaries in Detroit and Sacramento. ACJ addressed the founding meeting of the Democratic Party’s Asian Pacific American Caucus. In Japan, coverage by newspapers and TV prompted Japanese to ask visiting American businessmen and government officials whether Asians are safe in the US and if Asians could get equal treatment here. Detroit’s Asian American community and accidental activists found themselves leading a national campaign. They didn’t realize it then, but they were creating a new civil rights movement of Asian Americans centered in the Midwest, with communities who had never spoken up together before. None of them had any idea that their efforts to seek justice for Vincent Chin and the Asian American community would become a legacy with lessons that would resonate for decades to come.
Conversation Questions
» Why was it important for people to organize and form American Citizens for Justice (ACJ)? What was the significance of the ACJ being a pan-Asian
American organization? » How was the ACJ welcomed as an advocacy organization in Detroit? » How can the process of organizing with people, communities and advocacy groups affect social change?
In this article, what were the outcomes of ACJ’s organizing with other prominent groups in Detroit, such as the Detroit Area Black Organizations (DABO), NCAACP Detroit Branch, Anti
Defamation League of B’nai B’rith and others? » What are some of the contemporary advocacy organizations that you would like to learn more about? If you are active with a local or national advocacy organization, what would you like others to know about your work?
